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Thursday, June 14, 2012

Interview with Operation Awesome!

For those of you who read my interview with Krista Van Dolzer, you may notice a pattern starting here. I am fascinated with on-line writing contests! And I can't even take part in them because I don't have a completed (and polished) manuscript. But it is tons of fun watching them unfold and then reading all the entries. Krista Van Dolzer has a great post on Why You Should Enter Blog Contests with a lot of great points that wouldn't even have crossed my mind.

Most of the questions I asked here were the same as the last interview and I think it is iteresting to see the the answers from another set of perspectives. Thank you to Katrinz Lantz, Lindsay Scott (who writes as Isabella Morgan,) and
Michelle McLean from Operation Awesome who helped me out with this fun interview.

Operation Awesome hosts The Mystery Agent contests which run almost every month on the first of the month. They publish a "Heads Up" post the day before so there is no confusion on the specifics and all entries are done within the comments section once the contest post goes live. Read on to find out all about their "operation!"

1. When did you start blogging and what was your initial
purpose/reason?

Michelle: I
came in late to the party so I'll let you guys answer this one :) though I remember
when I joined you guys seemed very geared toward paying it forward - sharing
your journeys while trying to help other writers through theirs. Paying it
forward has always been a big theme of the OA I think.

Katrina: We
started the blog in September 2011. It was Kristal's idea, and I thought it'd
be good for building our online presence, which we're always hearing about from
agents. We also wanted to share with other writers, talk about writing and new
books we love. That's been one of the most fun things for me. That and the MA
contests, of course.

Lindsay: The
reason we started blogging as a group was to help other writers and give back
to the writing community.

2. Why did you decide to start having writing
contests?

Katrina: I'd
really enjoyed similar contests at other blogs, especially the Secret Agent
contests at Miss Snark's First Victim. After having some very friendly
interactions with a couple awesome agents, I realized that they really are
there to help writers get published, not just to mock ridiculous queries. :)
Our M.A. contests give us and our readers an opportunity to get to know these
nice agents, and gives the agents an opportunity to specify exactly what
they're looking for so (we hope) their inboxes get flooded with the right stuff
rather than the wrong stuff.

Michelle: We’ve
always loved these types of contests on other blogs (like Miss Snark’s First
Victim) and since our main mission is to help writers along their journey, it
seemed natural for us to help them try to connect with agents. They also give
us a chance to get to know agents better.

3. Was your blog already popular, and how did you
promote the contests?

Michelle: We’ve
slowly built our readership over the last year or so. We don’t require contest
participants to be followers, but I think the contests have helped spread the
word about us. To promote, we just do the usual – tweet, blog, Facebook, etc.

Katrina: We had
no followers in August before our September launch date, so it's been fun to
celebrate each milestone as a group blog as we've been able to reach more writers
with our contests and readers with our book love. Twitter was a very effective
promotional tool for the contests, like Michelle already said. It's so easy to
connect with other writers that way. It helped having six of us at once
tweeting about it. We also posted about the contests at popular writing forums
to spread the word even faster.

4. How do you approach/connect with the agents you
wish to include in the contests?

Michelle: We’ll
often approach newer agents, because they are the ones who are actively
building their lists. And we’ve asked agents we have personal experience with
(one month we had my former agent, for example). We just send them an email and
ask if they’d like to participate :) We’ve had a great response!

Lindsay: We
usually send an email to the agent to ask if the contest is something they'd be
interested in taking part.

5. Have you ever run into any problems or
disgruntled contestants, and how do you handle this?

Lindsay: Not as
yet.

Michelle: Nothing
too terribly bad yet. One or two that might disagree with our definition of a
one-line pitch, or people being upset about when the post goes live (we’ve
tried to alleviate this by posting in advance when it will go up, but we’ve had
a couple glitches, and really, you can’t make everyone happy). For the most
part we haven’t had any problems.

Katrina: We're
pretty accommodating when people have trouble with blogger. No system is fool
proof. :)

6. Are there any liability issues when running
contests?

Michelle: Hopefully not :) Since we aren’t
offering any products or guaranteed prizes and since we don’t require anything
for people to enter (such as following our blog or donations, etc), there
aren’t any liability issues that we are aware of. We do try to state the rules very
clearly, keep things as simple as possible, and make sure everyone knows up
front what is expected and what potential prizes are.

7. How fast do the contests fill up?

Lindsay: It can
be anything from minutes to hours.

Michelle: The
first 40 or so entries usually happen very quickly. The last contest we had,
the first 40 went in 10 minutes. Because the comment number doesn’t always
match up with how many qualifying entries we have, the last few entries tend to
take a bit longer because people will see 52 comments and assume we are full.
But, with our last contest we had 50 entries within about 25 minutes.

Katrina: Even the
very first contest was filled within the day. Writers love contests! And we
love hosting them. :)

8. The way
your Mystery Agent contests are set up, contestants enter via the comments
section of the blog post. This doesn't allow for any comments from other
contestants/readers. Did you set it up this way for a reason?

Michelle: Yes. We
aren’t running the contest so other readers can critique the pitches. The
pitches are only listed as an entry for the mystery agent. It’s scary enough
posting your pitch for an agent to see, let alone posting it and having a ton
of people critiquing it. We just wanted to run these contests to give people an
opportunity to hook up with an agent, not for critiques. Having people put them
in the comments is the fastest, easiest way for people to enter.

Lindsay: I think
that it just helps to keep things central to the blog. It also means that all
the OA ladies can see how the contest is filling up at the same time (rather
than email/spreadsheets which one person would have to keep track of).

Katrina: It
really does keep it simple, and some of our Mystery Agents like to follow along
with the contest by watching the blog comments fill up.

9. With a group blog I'm sure the workload is able
to be spread out. Does this make running the contests (almost
once-a-month) more manageable? Does each person have certain
responsibilities or do you rotate who runs the contest each month?

Lindsay: We all
pitch in to help. Usually there's one or two of us able to keep an eye on the
blog to count the entries/check they are all following the rules. We don't
rotate who runs the contest each month (since one of us is usually online with
the various time zones we live in), but we do keep as organized as possible. We
have a list of which OA member has contacted an agent/who it is/if the agent
has agreed/the month the agent is taking part etc.

Michelle: Whoever
contacts the agent is in charge of getting the post up and handling
communication with the agent regarding the entries, the reveal interview, etc.
We sort of take turns doing that although it’s not really scheduled. Whoever is
available that day will help keep an eye on things so we can get the contest
closed down as soon as we hit our quota and to help check entries to make sure
they are following the rules.

10. Contests seem like such a fun way to find an
agent. How many success stories can you attribute to your blog?

Katrina: Our Mystery Agents tab across the top of the blog includes success stories for
those who'd like to find out which pitches really nailed it. Sometimes success
meant finding an agent or selling a book, but most of the time these contests
have helped winners get more requests and personal feedback.

11. I’m sure the success stories are rewarding for
you, as well as for the writer and agent who found each other, but what
other part of hosting contests do you find most rewarding?

Lindsay: I love
the fact that, in a small way, we are helping connect other writers with
agents. Contests help gain experience. Pitching is something you learn to do.
Every contest you enter, winner or not, helps hone that part of the craft. And
knowing we've played a tiny part in the writing journey is wonderful.

Michelle: We
love reading all the pitches. There are some really good ones and a lot of
stories we’d really love to read! Really, helping our readers with posts on
pitching and reading all the pitches helps us with our own pitches.

Katrina: Ditto what Lindsay and
Michelle said. Pitching takes practice, but it really helps to see successful
examples. Sometimes it surprises me which pitches an agent will pick over
others, but I always learn something when I'm paying close attention. I
recommend our readers pay attention to these things, too. It can really help
you to get a grasp for what a particular agent craves. That's why we post the
contest link and reveal post on the Mystery Agents tab
so you can compare the two. And, like I said earlier, I really love getting to
know the agents. They're all book lovers like us! And all our M.A.'s are super
nice.

12. What tips do you have for someone who would like
to host contests on his/her blog?

Lindsay: Be as
organized as you can.

Don't be afraid of approaching agents to take part.

Michelle: Make
sure you have the rules very clearly spelled out. Give people a heads up at
least a week in advance so they know it’s coming and they can prepare their entry
(it takes time to get those entries polished!). Above all, keep it as simple as
you can. Running contests can get complicated, so the easier you can make it on
yourself and your followers, the better.

Katrina: I second
Lindsay's comment about not being afraid to contact an agent. I've only had one
bad experience contacting an agent for the contest, and that person was just a
Grouchy McGrouchikins. For the most part, agents are very receptive to
interviews and contests, as long as you keep it organized and make it as easy as
possible for them (because choosing from all those awesome pitches can be
tricky!). Make sure all they have to do is pick the winner and you handle the
rest.

About Me

I am a SAHM to three young kids. I started this blog to keep track of my progress on writing for children, but have expanded it to include anything created by me - photography, scrapbooks, art made with my kids, and knitted or crocheted projects. Therefore I have dubbed myself a Creative-in-Training. Looking forward to meeting you!